The World House (29 page)

  "I understand," Alan assured him. "This Ashe was clearly a dangerous man. Whatever you did to defend the life of your wife and crew can hardly be deemed unreasonable."

  "Perhaps you will no longer think that when I tell you what I did." Hawkins took another sip of brandy. "I made an initial show of agreement, just so that I could get close to him, but the minute an opportunity presented itself I took advantage, striking him a resounding blow to the head and disarming him."

  "I would have thought that was exceptionally restrained."

  "My real crime came afterwards. I was incensed! How dare this man threaten to kill the woman I love in return for ferrying him and his trinkets? It was all I could do not to shoot him, right then and there. It was Maggie who calmed me, pointing out that everyone was perfectly safe and that no harm had been done. She was right, of course, but I couldn't bear the thought of him on board my ship a moment longer.

  "By now the storms looked as if they would blow themselves out. In the distance the lights of the Malaysian port of Kupang were just visible. I wonder, are you familiar at all with the story of William Bligh?"

  "
Mutiny on the Bounty
? Only vaguely…"

  "After the mutiny Bligh was set adrift in an open boat with those few crewmen still loyal to him. They didn't expect him to make shore; it was all but a death sentence. However, Bligh was one hell of a sailor and managed to navigate as far as Kupang, where he landed safely."

  "I think I begin to see where this story is heading."

  "I imagine you do. The
Intrepid
had two lifeboats and I set Ashe adrift in one of them. He had a solid chance of reaching safety: land was visible and, as long as the storms didn't return to full strength, he had an even chance of success."

  "I still think you acted reasonably. The man was a risk to you and your crew, and you had to put their safety first."

  "Perhaps. Though if I'm honest I simply wanted Ashe to suffer. I was hot for revenge. I wanted him
scared
. And he was… though not for his own life, damn him, but rather for his precious artifacts! He began screaming like a lunatic, insisting that he would follow us every step of our journey, hunt us down and cut our throats while we slept unless we gave him his belongings."

  "So what did you do?"

  "I gave them to him, one by one, over the side of the boat, figurines and busts, tapestries and paintings… all of them were hurled into the waves. Maggie endeavoured to calm me down but I was wild and would have none of it. To make matters worse the sky had begun to darken, as if the clouds were as angry as I. The storms were returning and, as the rain began to fell, there am I, captain of my boat, ignoring all issues of safety, pelting this bastard with antiques. In truth he seemed no more concerned about the storm than I was, still screaming his threats.

  "The ship began to rock. We needed to take measures but I was focused on only one thing. Then I came upon the last item in his cabin, the most precious of all, it would seem."

  "A Chinese box?"

  Hawkins nodded. "You are familiar with it. I grabbed the thing, meaning to hurl it off the side with the rest. That was when the storm really broke, thunder, lightning, the very worst God can hurl at us. As the rain lashed the deck and the boat rocked, I lost my footing, falling back down the hatch, the box slipping from my grasp.

  "The next thing I know, the storm has stopped and we are surrounded by silence. I had lost consciousness in the fall, fetching my head a sound blow on the stairs. I could only assume I had managed to sleep through the whole thing. On climbing up to the deck, imagine my surprise: not only was it daylight but we had lost all sight of land. Still, I could only assume the storm had blown us off course. It took the reports of the crew to clarify otherwise…"

  "You had been transported here."

  "Indeed. All of us, crew and boat, the whole affair, scooped from the edge of the Indian Ocean and dropped here. Needless to say, of Ashe there was no sign." Hawkins drained his brandy and glanced at the window. "Our story must continue later. The night is coming and you will soon see that that is something into which we do not sail lightly. May I suggest you check on your young friend and then join me on deck? I would appreciate your help in the hell that will soon be on us."

 

Sophie was still sleeping. Alan wondered if it was due to her longer exposure to the water; after all, she must have been floating there some time before he had arrived. He checked her window was closed – whatever terrors were due tonight, he wanted to ensure she was locked away from them – and headed back up to the deck.

  Hawkins was pacing up and down. The quiet, selfreflective man now quite absent to be replaced by Hawkins the Sailor, the efficient man of the ocean.

  "What do you need me to do?" Alan asked.

  "For now, nothing. We've got the lockdown to a fine art. Later, though, you can add to the defences."

  "Defences against what?"

  "The water, naturally – it is our major enemy here, you will see…" He began moving towards the fore of the ship. "Jonah! Come on, we need to be anchored, now!"

  Alan looked above him. The white roof was darkening as if the illumination were within the very paint on its surface. The water was becoming restless beneath the boat, the gentle rolling of the day replaced by an irritated choppiness. A storm was on its way; there was a charge to the air that was unmistakeable.

  "How on earth can you have a weather system inside a house?" he wondered to himself.

  "Same way you can sail a boat in it," said Barnabas, walking past. "The whole place is mad and will likely kill us any minute."

  Clouds were beginning to form. Alan looked over the prow, watching the waves lengthen in the gloom. The water took on a strange quality in the half-light, moving as if independent of the wind on the surface. Waves contradicted each other, moving in opposing directions. They came to a peak only to hold themselves for a moment before crashing back down with an aggressive slap. Alan thought about what Hawkins had said: the water itself was the enemy…

  As he watched, the sea began to undulate towards the boat. Peaks extended to form the shape of human hands, hundreds of them waving to one another in the stormy air. One by one they approached the boat and began to clap on the hull, the slow drumming building in volume as each watery hand joined its fellows.

  "Quickly, man!" Hawkins shouted to Jonah, "they're upon us!"

  Jonah manned the harpoon guns, turning them – rather disconcertingly – towards the aft of the ship rather than facing out towards the water.

  "What's he doing?" Alan asked, having to shout loudly over the drumming noise.

  "Anchoring us," Hawkins replied as Jonah cranked a lever that lifted the harpoons towards the sky rather than the deck. "When the water is unreliable we must look above for stability."

  With a cry, Jonah fired the harpoons skyward, where they sailed through the building clouds whipping their ropes behind them. They found their mark, embedding themselves in the plaster of the roof with a double thud. The ship creaked to a halt, the ropes pulling taut. Alan grabbed hold of the rail to stop himself losing his balance. "Now what?" he asked.

  "Now we fight!" Hawkins replied, throwing him a plank of driftwood. "They break up if you hit them hard enough."

  "What do?" – but the answer was already climbing aboard: men moulded from the water around them, their transparent muscles glistening in the torches that Maggie was lighting all over the deck. Alan watched as Ryan ran at one of the invaders holding a plank of his own. The boy swung the plank and the creature exploded in a splash across the deck. He swung at another but the blow was too light: the man's shape distorted but ultimately held its form. Barnabas leapt in, giving the creature a stout blow to the shoulder-blades that saw it dissipate like an upturned bucket.

  "Spread out!" Hawkins shouted, "cover all sides!"

  Alan saw one of the creatures clambering aboard a few feet to his left and struck at its head. It opened its mouth in a silent roar a moment before the head dispersed in a shower of vapour.

  "Aim for the body!" Maggie shouted as she ran past him, a skillet in her hands. "The head's not enough."

  She was proved correct as the man's features reformed, the extra water flooding up from its shoulders. Alan waited until it was half over the rail before hitting it again where its watery ribs might lie, closing his eyes as it exploded in a shower over him. Another had made the deck to his right and he turned to attack it, unaware of yet one more creeping over the rail behind him. He stuck the plank in the man's solar plexus and whipped it outwards, the torso gushing forth, its raised arms pouring to the floor as it disintegrated. He felt himself grabbed from behind, the grip surprisingly strong as it lifted him from the deck, one watery hand pushing into his mouth to drown him. Suddenly the creature dissipated, hit from behind by Barnabas.

  "Told you," he moaned, slouching off with his oar to attack elsewhere, "we'll all be dead in a minute."

  Picking himself up off the deck, Alan wiped his wet hair away from his face and struck another man clambering over the rail. Above them, the storm continued to roar, forks of lightning slicing their way through the deluge and throwing light on the sea's surface, where more and more of the men could be seen to form, rising up and wading towards them through the foam.

  "How many are there?" Alan shouted.

  "Sometimes there are whole legions, sometimes only a handful," Hawkins replied, moving to stand back to back with Alan and grunting as he dispatched another. "The attack never lasts long, no more than five minutes, but each night, when it comes, one cannot help but wonder if that will be the night their numbers overwhelm us."

  A pair of them appeared from behind the rigging, the reflection of lightning adding a whiteness to their grinning teeth. Alan struck at one, Maggie the other, plank meeting skillet with a celebratory clang in the resulting shower of water.

  "No end to the fun on board this ship, eh?" she said with a laugh before spotting more invaders behind her and dashing off to deal with them.

  Alan was quick to tire, the pain in his shoulder returning. He wondered how long the attack had lasted. Surely it must end soon? Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jonah, whipping an oar around him, like a character from a martial arts film. The blind man had hit upon a surefire method to compensate for his lack of sight, keeping his weapon on the move at all times, turning constantly so that he couldn't help but hit something if it came anywhere near him. Ryan still seemed to be enjoying himself, whooping and jeering as he ran to and fro, dropping to the deck and sliding towards his targets. It was amazing, thought Alan, how the crew had adapted to their circumstances. They remained undaunted by the odds of their survival and met the challenge head on. He was glad to have found himself on board, proud to fight alongside them. He just hoped he survived the experience…

  Barnabas slipped on the deck, dropping his oar as two of the attackers bore down on him. Alan came up behind them and dispatched them with a roar that was half triumph, half pain, his shoulder protesting terribly by now. "There," Alan said, spitting out a mouthful of the dispersed creatures, "you won't be dying just yet."

  "Only a matter of bloody time," Barnabas moaned, climbing to his feet and picking up his oar.

  The attack ceased. There was one final explosion of thunder and then all the watery men poured away leaving the crew tired and soaked but alive for one more night.

  "Thanks for your help, Alan," said Hawkins, "good to have another pair of hands. We should be safe now. Let's leave the storm to blow out while we warm ourselves and eat."

  "Bet it's stew again," Barnabas said, slouching off towards the hatch.

  Hawkins rolled his eyes, miming clubbing the man down with his plank to the amusement of the others. "Come on," he said, "let's go and eat some bloody stew."

 

They gathered below deck in the mess. It was a room that took its name to heart, with discarded clothes, papers and even the odd bread roll hiding under the table. Hawkins had given Alan a change of clothes and he had checked on Sophie again but she was still fast asleep, the sound of the storm and fighting having disturbed her not one jot.

  "Don't worry," Maggie said as she stirred the predicted stew, "she'll be all right but it takes it out of you. We found young Ryan there floating in the water three or four months ago now, it took him a week to come round."

  Alan looked over at the cabin boy, who was laughing and pulling mocking faces at Barnabas. "Certainly hasn't harmed him in the long run," he commented. "So Ryan wasn't part of your original crew?"

  "No, he was driftwood, just like yourself."

  "Are you not tempted to leave the ocean?"

  "We prefer to stay aboard ship. It's our home and we know the risks here. From what we can tell the house has a never-ending set of surprises."

  "'Better the devil you know.'"

  "Exactly, though I worry sometimes that we'll never find a way home if we stick to the water. We've sailed so much of it and found nothing."

  "Is there any other land out here?"

  "Not that we've seen."

  Hawkins came in, his hair hanging loose to dry around his shoulders. "Stew, is it?" he said with a smile, sitting down at the table. "Your favourite, Barnabas."

  Barnabas growled, picking at the wood of the table with the blade of his knife.

  The stew was served into bowls and they all sat down to eat. It was bland but filled a hole and Alan could at least be grateful that it contained no boar. Once they were done Hawkins asked him to tell his own story, which he did, describing his life in Florida and what had driven him to hunt for the box. He told them about meeting Sophie and trekking through the jungle, the escape from the cannibals and the darkness between the walls. He found himself enjoying it; certainly it was an adventurous tale and nobody could claim to be bored. His life had always been quiet and predictable, split between his research, his therapy and his students. While he couldn't say he relished the danger, he had to admit that – having survived what the house had thrown at him – he was the better for it. Of course he might change his mind once he saw what terrors tomorrow brought.